DEV Community: Kevin

Reinvent the Wheel

Kevin — Fri, 27 Dec 2019 19:23:20 +0000

While I tagged this as JavaScript, it applies everywhere.

Don't believe the folks who state that you shouldn't design and code a system that already exists. Similarly, never be afraid to revisit existing code to upgrade it with all your newest tricks.

The TLDR is simple: everything is a learning experience.

Do take into account, however, the needs of your organization. I have the advantage of being able to crank out code like there's no tomorrow, so I always take a little time to refactor and reinvent.

Focusing on the reinvent. When you download a massive Swiss army knife, we all have a good example I am sure (Dev Express for this example), you know it will do alot, but also have many limitations. Say you need a smart excel-like table tool. You could use an external system with it's blessings and flaws, or you could steal the design and reimplement.

Half the work is done. You know the tool you are borrowing from, and you know your specific requirements. You know the things you like, need, don't need from the other tool. So you begin the process of coding off of those designs and requirements.

Along the way you will learn tons, re-enforce tons, and have an outcome that may be better or may not.

Here's always my biggest take-away from these mini-projects: through the process you will either learn why the original had the perceived flaws, or you will find out that you were able to master those flaws and have a product that has the feature-set and the implementation you need, without any bloat.

Or you could have just constructed the largest pile of pasta you've ever seen.

But the TLDR is still true! You learned stuff.

Good news in the office!

Kevin — Fri, 20 Dec 2019 22:54:28 +0000

Ahoy and happy holidays!

Today is a landmark day in our office. We notified our clients that in our next major release we would no longer be supporting Internet Explorer.

It was a great holiday gift for me! While there are a ton of modern JavaScript features I am looking forward to using, the first one on my list is the async function.

What is your favorite newish JavaScript feature, and how has it made your life easier? I am not ashamed to state I plan to steal all your good ideas 😋.

The Case Against JS Frameworks.

Kevin — Wed, 04 Dec 2019 06:07:45 +0000

Gotcha! This will not likely be the grand debate you are looking for. I think I will make some form of point or observation though. Maybe.

Oh, and first post. Long time lurker, etc.

Before I joined the Client Apps team, Jesse over in Internal Systems started modernizing the ye old webforms app using a Handlebars variant.

Me, I brought in 10 years of JS experience, love, and my Homebrew JS and jQuery plugin system. You could almost call it a framework...but it's not, more of a pattern. I jumped right in that heap of webforms and started flying on all sorts of new projects!

About six months in, we had a meeting to discuss what Frameworks we should be using. I'm like, "okay, good teams agree on their architecture. I'm game." I presented AngularJS as my personal choice, having tinkered in it before. That was rejected, but only because Bob, a former employee, had thrown together some projects with KnockoutJS, before leaving the company. So we did that.

But it really isn't an arcitecture, more of a tool. So I kept busting out projects with my personal system, making incremental improvements. Actually removed jQuery at the appropriate time (es5).

I am productive. Dangerously so. It's hard to beat my numbers. I am the one folks go to when they need something fast and quality. I am not ego-tripping, only making this point because...

While every team is discussing what framework they are going to use, on top of other existing frameworks, and competing with other teams' framework choices, I just cruise along with my well-documented and proven coding patterns.

What's weird is no one ever asks me about using it officially. At least they do borrow code/pattern/style. Just like I do from every bit of code I browse.

I think I promised a point of some kind. Learn to love JavaScript. Don't be afraid of it. Stop trying to find a framework that will hide the implementation and do things for you. One day you'll realize that you don't need the 3000 ton hammer to build that drop-down widget.

Wait, nowhere in the post did I actually imply any of that. Oh well!

Yawns bedtime I think... Let me publish this right before bed. That always tends to work out without any drama.